Discipleship in the New Age I - Personal Instructions to Disciples -
K.E.S.

To K. E. S.

August 1935

BROTHER OF
OLD:

This method of beginning an instruction is one oft used by me, as you well know. It is
necessarily a wide generalization, based on true experience in relationship with each
other. Thus, in other lives, I have stood to you in relation of teacher to pupil for some
time, and that relation is now to be strengthened upon the physical plane. For long you
have sensed my presence, and sensitive people also, who know you well, have likewise
sensed it. This you also well know. The contact is now to be more closely established;
your instruction on the path will now be more definite and your way more accurately
defined. This, too, your friends may sense, and being not free from human error and,
walking oft in the vale of illusion, they may be led to see, hear and relate that which is
not the case, and which certainly can be ascertained by you at first hand. Use, therefore,
discrimination, my brother. That which they have sensed is but my distorted reflection
upon the astral plane, for all that is there reflected is not seen correctly. My contact
with you must, in the [545] future, be more direct, increasingly self-ascertained, and
based upon the linking of your soul with mine upon the mental plane. Ponder on this.

Each
expansion of consciousness is preceded by a period of testing in some one of the three
bodies, and in some aspect of the lower nature. To this, you have been no exception. For
two years now you have been tested, consciously or unconsciously, and this climaxed in the
illness of the past summer. This I know you realize. Such tests produce an inner
unfoldment which may be more apparent to those who teach you than to yourself. This
testing and its results constitute a responsibility, and open up avenues of approach to
the central reality of the soul, hitherto not employed.

You are
entering now upon a few years of intensified training. For this you must be prepared. Are
you willing for a while to submit to what may be suggested by me, and, patiently,
willingly and without looking for results, conform to my suggestions? If you do so, you
will find changes taking place in your interests and outlook, and will arrive at fresh
ways of dealing with life. You will also find repudiations taking place, which will alter
the trend of your life interests, and these will be based on a changed attitude of mind
and a more positive inner focusing. This process of repudiating constitutes one of the
hardest aspects of the disciple's career. You have moved forward upon the Path of
Discipleship and must be prepared.

Two things require adjustment in the inner life of your experiencing. First, you must
enter into a deeper and more assured soul experiencing. This will involve outer
detachments, inner readjustments and the steady development of the ability to stand as
a conscious soul in the light. You are not yet used to my method of
instruction, as are senior disciples in my group. I only seek to suggest. I give hints in
the ancient occult manner, leaving it to you to interpret and to act as seems best to you.
I ask for sincerity of purpose on the part of those I teach, and a willingness to act when
the next step is illumined. I do not indicate to any of you at any time if there
has been right interpretation of my words and suggestions. I seek to train conscious,
responsible souls who will duly weigh suggestion and accept and act when the intuition
indicates a procedure. [546]You will have to ponder deeply upon my words until the
rapport between us is more strongly established upon the mental plane. I point you to
positive action in line with clarity of vision could you but see it. Perhaps you promptly
will.

Secondly,
there are two adjustments in your relationships with people which you would find it wise
to make; these would have a releasing effect upon your soul influence, and thus
incidentally upon your personality life and environment. I speak not more clearly as the
latter lies between you and your soul and is no concern of your co-disciples. The
situation exists in the field of relationships and attitudes, and does not involve
particularly drastic physical plane activity. If you see not clearly to what I am
referring, wait in patience for a while, conform to my suggested technique for you and
realization may eventuate as time elapses.

For a year you must proceed with care in your meditation work and for six months (until
I next communicate with you) I would have you do no breathing exercises at all. Later,
when your physical health is better established, such exercises will serve a useful
purpose.

I outline for you below a simple meditation exercise to be duly carried forward.
Proceed with it carefully, and use not too great an intensity as yet. It is a meditation
which I give at times to my pupils and is called a "Meditation on the Path of the
Inner Light." This meditation comes at the close of this relatively brief
communication which has for its main objective the intensification of the link already
existing between us. This meditation with the general work assigned to my disciples is all
I ask of you during the next six months.

Sit erect, but relaxed, and in a position of physical comfort.

Withdraw the consciousness inward in successive stages, using the imagination in so
doing. The imagination is a creative activity, producing definite inner changes. Upon this
you can depend, for it is one of the forces influencing substance itself. Therefore,
withdraw your consciousness:

From the physical brain, after definitely centering it there, to the astral body. [547]

From the astral body to the mind. Then recognize yourself as being an integrated
personality.

From the integrated personality to the soul.

As you do this work, endeavor to see the thread of golden light which connects these
three bodies, keeping your consciousness steadily in the head, at the center between the
eyebrows, the ajna center. This thread, dual in nature like two golden cables intertwined,
passes from the heart and head and connects you, as a personality, with the soul.

When you have thus carried it upwards, and seen it aligning and relating all the three
aspects of the personality, then pause in your meditation and realize - quietly and
silently - that:

You are now face to face with your own soul, and standing before the Angel of the
Presence, who is yourself.

You, the personal self, and the Angel, the divine Self, are one essential Reality,
manifesting through three aspects. You are, therefore, a reflection of the Trinity of
Deity.

There is in reality no separation or duality, no I, or thou, but simply a God in
manifestation, whose nature is Light.

Then say:

Having pervaded this world of the little, manifested self with one fraction of myself, I
remain greater, wider and over-shadowing all my daily living.
Ponder on this thought for five minutes.

I, the manifesting, Self, through the magical power of my nature, revitalize, redeem and
reabsorb this fraction, dwelling in the body.
Ponder on this for five minutes.

Then carry the life and light of the Angel of the Presence back again consciously into
the body and know it to be there, illuminating your mind, rendering positive and
quiescent your astral nature, and invigorating and stimulating your physical body. Do this
definitely and slowly, using the will. [548]

Then send forth the incoming light and love in strength and blessing.

To your group brothers.

To all in your immediate family and environment whom you seek to aid.

To distressed humanity.

As you do this regard yourself as working consciously as a soul and as a tiny
representative and channel for the Hierarchy of Masters whom you seek to serve. These can
only reach your immediate personal circle and environment through you.

Then say aloud the following invocation:

"May the energy of the divine Self inspire and the light of the Soul direct; may I
be led from darkness to light, from the unreal to the real, from death to
immortality."